Outside The Confines: The final weekend

Well, we’re here, the final weekend of regular play is upon is. It’s wild to think that nearly 162 games have passed, because it feels like just yesterday we were freezing while watching Opening Day, and now we’re ready to be freezing going into the postseason. It’s been an incredible year of ups and downs and much shorter games (Hallelujah, Manfred did one thing right.)

So with no massive preamble or lead-in (we’ll have plenty of that in the coming weeks with postseason thought pieces and offseason trades), let’s get into the final Friday of the regular season.

• Davy Andrews dives deep into the emotional world of sad baseball announcers.
• The Mariners are still in the chase thanks to an incredible ninth-inning walk-off. Story by Daniel Kramer.
• Stephanie Apstein explains how thinking less is helping Vlad Jr. hit more.
• This is strictly informational, the Red Sox have released a brief statement about Tim Wakefield requesting privacy for him and his family.
• The Athletic staff try to determine who is most likely to be the NL MVP. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Hector Neris has released a statement about his verbal altercation with Julio Rodriguez.

• Daniel Kramer has more on the statement and what Rodriguez had to say about the incident as well.
• Michael Baumann looks at the Phillies’ return to the postseason.
• From underdogs to top dogs, Jake Rill shares the O’s climb to the top, and to 100 wins.
• Emma Baccellieri explains the radical and radically fast transformation of the O’s.
• While not every player has announced their retirement plans, Will Leitch looks at four superstars who we are unlikely to see on the field next year.
• Rustin Dodd and Stephen J. Nesbitt offer up one most-improved player per team. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Never change, Bryce.

• Todd Zolecki looks at the lucky kid whose night was made by Harper’s ejection.
• Karl Rasmussen shares what Harper had to say about Hernandez after the ejection.
• Ben Clemens revisits his preseason predictions.
• Jay Jaffe explains why Mike Trout is likely to stay with the Angels.
• Ken Rosenthal agrees, but thinks Trout needs to demand more from Angels ownership. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• I don’t know about you guys, but I liked the old one just fine.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.